Lisbon man loses trees, monetary damages

LISBON - A Lisbon man who lost his trees to Ohio Edison's saws last year has also lost his battle for monetary damages.

Columbiana County Common Pleas Court Judge C. Ashley Pike dismissed the claim last week in the Wayne Wilson case, ruling in favor of summary judgment requested by Ohio Edison due to a lack of issues to decide.

The saga of the 40 blue spruce trees along U.S. Route 30 outside of Lisbon began in 2007 when Wilson filed a lawsuit in an effort to prevent the utility from cutting down the trees they claimed would interfere with the transmission lines overhead.

Initially Pike issued a temporary restraining order to stop the tree removal, but on Jan. 9, 2008, he denied the preliminary injunction sought by Wilson and sided with Ohio Edison. The utility had argued an easement the company possessed for the property gave them the right to cut down the trees.

The trees were cut down before the case could be argued any further. Wilson's attorney, Jennifer Boyle Beck, filed an appeal of Pike's decision, but the 7th District Court of Appeals ruled the decision wasn't final because the issue of damages remained. She also asked Pike to recuse himself from the case, alleging he had a bias against her client since he ruled against him.

Pike overruled her motion after the appellate court made its decision.

Ohio Edison outlined several facts regarding the case, including that Wilson was aware of the easement when he purchased the property, that the easement gave the company the right to remove any vegetation that could interfere with the wires and that Wilson knew about the easement when he planted the trees on the property controlled by the easement.

The attorney for the utility company also wrote that Wilson wasn't entitled to any award or damages since he planted the trees on the easement.

"Where a property owner plants vegetation that obstructs, or interferes with the easement rights of a utility, that property owner is not entitled to compensation for the utility's removal of that vegetation," the brief said.

Pike noted that the response filed by Wilson's attorney didn't address the facts outlined in Ohio Edison's request for summary judgment, but said those facts provided "ample grounds" for him to grant the dismissal. The court also agreed to dismiss the affidavits filed by two witnesses for Wilson, agreeing with Ohio Edison's argument that they were not qualified as experts in the case.

In his ruling, Pike wrote that the response filed by Wilson's attorney "now lacks any type of evidentiary materials whatsoever." He found that the facts as laid out by Ohio Edison showed there were no issues of fact to decide.